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Haymarket to the Heights Traces History of Cleveland’s Orthodox Synagogues

Posted on July 14, 2014 at 10:37 AM, updated July 14, 2014 at 10:37 AM Print

New e-book available as free download from Cleveland State University’s Michael Schwartz Library (MSL) Academic Endeavors

July 14, 2014 — CLEVELAND — Haymarket to the Heights: The Movement of Cleveland’s Orthodox Synagogues from Their Initial Meeting Place to the Heights, a new e-book by Jeffrey S. Morris, has been published by Cleveland State University’s Michael Schwartz Library (MSL) Academic Endeavors.

Available as a free download, the book traces the movement, growth and demise of the small neighborhood synagogues, or shuls, established by newly arrived Eastern European Jews in Cleveland’s Haymarket area as they migrated to the eastern suburbs.

Morris divides the book into three main themes:

Three Orthodox congregations that remain today and the 18 smaller congregations that chose to merge with them;

Orthodox congregations that no longer exist;

Independent Orthodox congregations established prior to 1940 that continue to exist.

His meticulous documentation, spanning more than a century, includes photographs, architectural drawings, maps and personal experiences as the synagogues and its members struggle to retain their religious history and traditions.

John B. Hexter, Cleveland area business consultant and supporter of Morris’s research efforts, states in the foreword:

“Here finally is a fully documented and accurate picture of the migration of the local Jewish community from the central core (Haymarket) area, now a freeway interchange, east to Mount Pleasant and Glenville and then to the Heights. I was privileged to accompany Jeffrey on several excursions to inner-city churches that were once Jewish houses of worship and to interview the religious leaders occupying still-sacred space.”

Morris, a graduate of CSU’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs and a former Peace Corps volunteer who served in the Philippines, has a passion for history and specializes in the history of Jewish Cleveland from 1860 through 1960. He is also the author of Beechwood, The Book.